Having read through the thread, a couple of things come to mind.
First off, Fae are a broad range of creatures/beings which inhabit the Nevernever relatively 'close' to the mortal world. Having said that, I get the impression from posts by others within the thread that most people seem to think anything/everything in the areas of the Nevernever close to the mortal world are Fae. That is not my impression though.
A case in point: The
, which have appeared in the short stories Even Hand and Aftermath, are related to the
according to Gard (mentioned in Even Hand).
Given that the
are a race of giants from Norse mythology, and that the
are also a giant-like race from Celtic mythology, and that much of the Fae mythology is Celtic in origin, I would consider the
to be an entirely separate race/group, not something whichs under the rather broad handing of 'Fae'.
I plan on treating the designation ‘Fae’ as sort of the genus of something, with then the specific type of Fae being a cobb, brownies, dewdrop fairie etc… Much like how modern man is a homo sapiens, where homo is the genus indicating Man, and then sapiens indicating ‘Thinking” for modern man. In terms of whether other ‘things’ found within the Nevernever are Fae or not, I would ask two questions. The first is whether or not the things are known for always telling the truth, as that is one of the hallmarks of the Fae. The other is whether or not they are vulnerable to iron, though I think there are some stories of Fae who aren’t harmed by iron.
Much of the non-Western mythology of spirits, creatures and beings I would treat as being something other than ‘Fae’. The Mideast has Jinn, Oni and other spirits/demons/beings are found in Japan and Asia, etc. Something also to keep in mind, non-Western cultures tend to use terms like demon, devil, ghost and spirit differently than Western cultures. A Chinese term for ethnic Westerners is ‘gweilo’ pronounced gah-why-lo, which depending on translation works out to ‘white ghost’ or ‘white devil’
Now the designation ‘sidhe’ which I believe is Gaelic for ‘person’ seems to be used to indicate that a particular Fae has amassed some amount of power, be it magically, politically, socially, etc. Enough for them to have some influence at least within the Courts, if not the supernatural community in general. As such, the Erlking for instance seems to be a Goblin Sidhe, while Jenny Greenteeth, Maeve’s handmaiden in Summer Knight, was a Nixie Sidhe.
In terms of Fae courts there are by my count, four confirmed courts so far, with a fifth having been alluded to both in the DFRPG books as well as some of the comments by Jim.
These are the Seelie Court (Summer) lead by the Summer Mother, Queen Titania and Lady Lily.
There is also the Unseelie Court (Winter) led by the Winter Mother, Queen Mab and Lady Maeve.
Then there is the Court of the Erlking, leader of the Goblins and the Wild Hunt who is rumored to be Summer-affiliated. Exactly to what extent remains to be seen.
Then in the short story Curses, a new Fae court, the
makes an appearance. Their present affiliations are unknown.
Lastly the seems to be a Winter-affiliated Court led by a Brownie Sidhe (hello Santa Claus…) king, the Winter counterpart to the Erlking. So far though apart from comments in the DFRPG and by Jim, Santa Claus or whatever he is known as has yet to make an appearance.
Given Norse Svartalf (dark elves) have been mentioned, it seems logical to me to assume that there is also Svartalfheim and likely Alfheim (Dark elf home and Elf home respectively), both groups are likely some sort of Nordic Fae and likely have their own Courts.
In Changes, Toot-toot seemed to be upset that Sanya couldn’t tell the difference between a domovoi and a polevoi, having called Toot-toot a domovoi. A domovoi is a household spirit, akin to a brownie, while a polevoi is dwarf-like spirit of the field.
Ultimately, whatever works in peoples own campaigns is really what matters. I would still recommend that any Fae politics has to be squirrelly though.
